A 30-degree slope, facing due south. Dominique Laroche sought land fitting this description, and with a tip from his father, he bought 1.5 acres of forested property in the Lanaudière region last year.

He set about building a small chalet he had designed. Once it had walls, windows and doors — but not much else — Laroche spent a few nights there this past winter — in minus-30C. Though it was still a construction site, the passive solar design kept the chalet warm enough that the back-up radiant heating system came on only at midnight.

The 1,225-square-foot, three-storey chalet in St-Calixte can sleep 13 comfortably, Laroche said. While some might dismiss the idea of such a small country home, Laroche said this is what architects should be doing: making functional spaces in as little square feet as possible.

“That just makes ecological sense,” said Laroche, an architect with 17 years’ experience. “It’s less energy to heat it up, it’s less material to build it.

“But it challenges people.”

Case in point is Laroche’s master bedroom; the only closed bedroom. Inspired by a hotel chain started in Amsterdam, CitizenM, it’s as wide as the king-sized bed it holds, and not much longer.

“It is really cozy,” Laroche said.

An east-facing window in the basement bedroom ensures morning light.

The chalet’s structure was made with cross-laminated timber, or CLT. Laroche calls it a revolutionary material.

Widely replacing steel and concrete in European construction since the 1990s, CLT has been promoted by both Canadian and Quebec governments in recent years. Its advocates applaud its strength, low production costs, environmental sustainability, fire resistance and esthetic appeal.

The interior walls of the chalet are simply the large, smooth, blond CLT panels that were pre-cut to 2-millimetre accuracy based on Laroche’s 3-D architectural model.

Using software called SketchUp, Laroche said he played with angles in planes and angles in elevation, and his final model was sent to a CLT manufacturer in Austria called KLH Element Inc. While a CLT plant exists in Quebec, and Laroche said he prefers local materials, he continued, “I think we need more competition in the CLT business in Quebec.”

“It was a big 3-D puzzle,” Laroche said, explaining how these panels were lifted from a shipping container with a crane and each secured into place. Erecting them could have taken three days, he said, but manoeuvring around some trees added a couple of days.

“All the pieces fell into place almost perfectly,” he said. “There are a couple of places where the gaps were a bit bigger than expected, but nothing that strikes your eyes.”

For his passive solar design, Laroche consulted Caroline Hachem, an architectural engineer involved in net-zero buildings — that is, buildings that create as much renewable energy as they use. The goal was to maximize the sun’s heat in the chalet by determining optimal window size and placement in relation to the orientation and volume of the concrete floors and soapstone kitchen surfaces, both of which hold heat and cold.

“In the winter the sun is very low; it gets deep into the space. It heats up the floors,” Laroche explained. “At night, the concrete slab radiates the heat.”

Even during minus-30-degree weather, he said, the sun’s heat keeps the house above 72 degrees during the day. “At around 9:30 a.m. in the morning — when the sun had been coming in for 30 minutes — the radiant heating system shut down, and it didn’t start up again until midnight.”

Pointing out the south-facing windows to the leafy canopy of maple trees, Laroche said, “The trees are very important.” In the winter, the bare trees don’t block the sunlight.

In the summer, with the sun higher in the sky, direct sunlight is more limited and the maple leaves mottle sunlight that does enter.

The four-inch-thick concrete and soapstone that hold so much heat in the winter also help keep the chalet cool in the summer, through night-flushing.

“The nights are always cooler than the day,” Laroche said. By keeping windows open at night during the summer, the indoor temperature drops and the concrete thermomass absorbs the coolness.

“The concrete slabs feel cool and fresh in the morning,” he said. “That freshness gets dissipated throughout the day.”

The site met Laroche’s needs in terms of sunlight, but he said St-Calixte’s local leadership was also a draw for him.

“The mayor here is a visionary,” Laroche said of Louis-Charles Thouin, who was given an award of excellence by the Fédération québécoise des municipalités in 2013. “He is looking into solutions for real green, sustainable development, no bullsh--,” he said.

Laroche is involved in two local projects with Thouin: a library and an esplanade in front of an art centre.

Both Laroche and his girlfriend, Pascale Lehoux, have normally lived and worked in Montreal. They are now settling into the chalet, from which they each work remotely.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Laroche said, adding that this is the first time he has invested in real estate, and he’s considered selling it as well.

The chalet’s main floor is an open concept and simply furnished with antique teak furniture bought on Amherst St. in Montreal. Two mezzanines overlook the main floor. One, accessed with a steel wall-mounted ladder, is big enough to sleep two people. A deep rectangular steel planter along its 14-foot outer edge will eventually contain trailing plants. All the home’s metal work, Laroche noted, was cut based on 3-D modelling, and like with CLT, there was no back and forth with shop drawings, which can create errors and confusion.

“That’s a big time time saver, and a big money saver, too,” Laroche said.

A similar planter runs along the main floor’s stairwell edge. Future climbing plants, Laroche said, will climb the vertical cables that stretch from this planter to the second mezzanine. That mezzanine is larger, and has a futon and two built-in desks — one with a view out to the forest, and one overlooking the bright kitchen and dining area.

At the bottom of the stairwell, in the basement, is a unique communal vanity space: a simple countertop and sink. Laroche said that while some have told him they would be uncomfortable brushing their teeth in front of others, he likes the flexibility it offers when there are many people around. Nearby are small connected rooms for the toilet, the shower and a soaker bath, and each room can be closed off with sliding doors, for privacy.

A multi-functional area in the basement includes a murphy bed, a curtain track to be able to close one area, and large windows facing the forest, which descends toward a valley. Two of the windows can be tilted open, and can open up as doors.

The electrical room downstairs includes a small box with several tubes running out of it — this electrically heats water that is piped through the concrete floors, as a back-up heating system. The room also has an instant hot water heater, a drain for water from the outdoor shower on the large south-facing patio off the main floor, and, of all things, a small laptop.

Humidity and temperature readings are taken from 12 points in the chalet and sent from this laptop to FPInnovations, which studies wood for the construction industry. The organization approached Laroche when they learned of his original design of CLT walls, an air barrier, seven inches of cellulose insulation, a rain barrier, and then western red cedar cladding. Laroche said they found him a $50,000 subsidy from Quebec’s Ministry of Natural Resources — half of which went to FPInnovations to do this monitoring. The subsidy no longer exists, Laroche said.

Laroche’s project also includes old doors that have been stripped of paint and repainted white, like on the small water closet on the main floor. In the main floor living area is a compact wood-burning stove with variable combustion made by Swedish company Stûv.

Earth-toned curtains enclose the chalet’s front-door closet, and some shelving in the living area that holds electrical items and a vacuum cleaner. Speakers for a central sound system are integrated in the ceiling. The chalet also has two patios off the main floor — the smaller one is on the west side, which is nice in the evening, Laroche said.

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